


Raise A Wreck

by MayQueen517



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family Feels, Gen, Ghost Drifting, Jake is the big brother, Other, Sort Of, The more things change the more they stay the same, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Universe Alteration, because I wrote this before Uprising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 20:09:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15420636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayQueen517/pseuds/MayQueen517
Summary: Soon, her world becomes enveloped in blue - her coat, the streets around her littered with smoking puddles of Kaiju blue, and the distinct discharge from a plasma cannon. Her world is blue until it is gold, wreathing a man who shouts and waves his hand in excitement and she can only give thanks that this machine is before her.Mako Mori is fourteen when she goes to live with Stacker Pentecost and his son, Jake.





	Raise A Wreck

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saellys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saellys/gifts).



> This fic has been a long time coming. It lived on my hard drive for actual years and was inspired by a comment about how someone didn't feel that Mako could carry the movie by herself. So, thus, spite-fic was born. 
> 
> I let it fall by the wayside for a variety of reasons, but xandri encouraged me to finish what I had and post it and get it out there. I thought I was going to post something unfinished, but here we are. This fic is complete, though it's not the ending I originally imagined. 
> 
> I'm stupendously pleased with it though.
> 
> Title is from Skinny Lister's song of the same name.

The world changes when she is still a girl.

Mako Mori is ten years old when the first Kaiju hits San Francisco. There is an entire ocean - an entire world and more between she and the Kaiju. 2013 is a new year for the world; the year that aliens become intent on destroying the world. She is ten years old and she isn't terrified like her classmates.

Her father finds out he has cancer less than two months later - she tries not to link it to those monstrous creatures but it's hard. They live in a small village and her father tells her that all things in life will change, it is up to her to know when to change with them. She remembers this for years, the smell of a forge around her, the heat, and the sound of her father's hammer as it folds steel.

She has only just turned thirteen when they make the long trip into Tokyo. They drive for part of the way, taking their time as they drive past where they can see most of the Shatterdome that protects their side of the coast. It looks dirty and quiet and Mako settles back in the car, coat wrapped around her as she rests her head against the window. In the front, her parents talk quietly, the murmuring lulling her to sleep.

She is thirteen, with a red shoe that has just snapped because she is running. She runs and runs and runs from a creature from another world. She runs and screams because they are the last weapons she has left and she prays; she prays for protection, for a quick death, or, at the least, that her parents died in that way. A choked sob leaves her throat as she hides behind a dumpster.

Soon, her world becomes enveloped in blue - her coat, the streets around her littered with smoking puddles of Kaiju blue, and the distinct discharge from a plasma cannon. Her world is blue until it is gold, wreathing a man who shouts and waves his hand in excitement and she can only give thanks that this machine is before her.

Mako Mori is fourteen when she goes to live with Stacker Pentecost and his son, Jake.

She spends months in London and then Shatterdomes, learning how to live without the retreat of her father's forge and the quiet ceremony of tea with her mother. Tokyo is gone but she is Tokyo's daughter now. It feels like the ash and dust that stayed in her hair for days when she hears it. Jake shows her around when there’s nobody else. He is older than she is but unlike her cousins, that doesn’t stop him from being kind to her. She comes to call Stacker Pentecost 'Sensei' as well as calling Jake a friend, and she meets Tamsin Sevier with shockingly red hair and sad eyes that lighten when she and Sensei visit.

"How’re the boys treatin' ya?" Tamsin asks one day as Mako looks down at her new clothes; they are simple and more of a uniform that makes her feel as if she's a part of this new world. Tamsin smiles at her, holding her jacket on her lap. The Coyote Tango logo gleams up at her from silver embroidery.

"It's good," Mako says, thinking of it and looking at Tamsin's red, red, red hair. Tamsin catches her looking and grins, quick as a flash and Mako loves her as fiercely as she knows how.

"Better than good, I think," Tamsin says knowingly, pulling Mako along with her to the bathroom. It is Tamsin who bleaches streaks into her dark hair, smiling and smelling like engine grease and leather. It is suddenly comforting - almost like being in her Father's forge back in Tanegashima and when her eyes well up, Tamsin doesn't say anything. Her hair is streaked with blue - like the blue that she can still smell sometimes coming from the K-Science lab. The blue of a plasma cannon; the discharge of it all over the streets of what was left of Tokyo. The blue that takes her back to looking up from the feet of a Jaeger, seeing a man standing atop the machine.

It is perfect.

===

 

Mako meets Chuck and Herc Hansen the December before she turns fifteen. They get into a fight, bloodying each other's noses and Mako manages to split Chuck's lip before Sensei and Herc break them up. It is startling to see the resigned disappointment on Sensei's face even as he asks her, in quiet Japanese, if she would like to go to Alaska in January.

"Alaska?" she asks, this time in English, watching him nod as he looks at her. He takes another one of his pills and that same cold, choked feeling of learning that her father was sick spreads through her.

"The Jaeger Academy," Sensei says, voice rough as he pockets the tin again, looking across the hallway to where they can hear Chuck and Herc arguing, "I had intended to wait but perhaps, given today, you might enjoy it more now."

(She hears what he doesn't say, the shadowed smile as she flexes her knuckles, the skin cracking anew. He reaches up and touches her shoulder lightly, directing her arm with gentle, easy touches until she's got her hands up in a block.

"This," he says, reaching up to his neck to pull off his tie and jacket. He looks relaxed and his eyes are as warm as always, "is how you should block.")

Months later, in Alaska, on a mat while sparring with Chuck, she remembers it abruptly. They're nearing the end of their training period, learning everything they can and proving that they're better than their ages. She blocks a hit and uses her elbow to land a ringing blow to the side of Chuck's head. He curses and she grins fiercely.

It's the first time she's felt totally alive since a monster came out of the deep, destroying her family and her old life. She has a new one now, one with the possibility of one of those machines, hulking and beautiful and capable of sending a reminder back to the creators of the kaiju. Jake - home from college - collects her from sparring, a sprinkling of hair beginning to shadow his cheeks, making him look like Sensei. 

“Dad said you knocked little Hansen’s lights out,” Jake says in the silence between them as they make their way back to the Pentecost quarters. Mako ducks her head, a cross between pride and shame crossing her cheeks in a red flush. Jake tosses an arm around her shoulders loosely as they walk up to entryway.

“I bloodied his nose. I don’t think that’s ‘knocking his lights out’,” she says, hesitating as Jake barks out a laugh, holding the door open for her to step inside the quarters she shares with Sensei. 

A month after she turns fifteen, with the last snow of the season on the ground (so they hope), she and Chuck graduate from the program. They graduate into the PPDC uniforms and are told that construction of the very last Mark-3 Jaeger will be completed in another two weeks and it belongs to them. She grabs onto Chuck's hand and holds onto him; tight and clammy, his hand grabs hers easily.

At the podium, with her hand gripping Chuck's tightly, she watches Herc stand in his dress blues, a broad grin on his face as he watches them. She returns the grin as she catches Sensei's eyes. The smile from him is small and restrained but his eyes are warm and bright as he pins their rank of Ranger to both of their uniforms. In the crowd, beaming, is Jake and Tamsin, side by side. Tamsin has buzzed her bright red hair and she and Jake share matching shaved lines in the sides (Mako has the same set of lines in the newly shorn patch of hair at the nape of her neck).

Across the water, in a bay of the Alaska Shatterdome, sits a Jaeger that is all theirs. A Jaeger for the two youngest Rangers that the program's ever produced. She holds onto Chuck's hand, standing beside Sensei and Jake and feels nothing but gorgeous, golden pride for the thirteen year old girl she once was, cowering in fear behind a dumpster. And now, a month after turning sixteen, she is on her way to the Shatterdome to wait.

The papers go insane - Tokyo's Daughter graduating on the anniversary of Onibaba's attack, graduating with Chuck Hansen as the youngest Rangers ever. Tokyo's Daughter standing up, proud and tall, with a PPDC eagle on her arm at the side of Marshall Stacker Pentecost. The nickname still leaves a bad taste in her mouth, yet it doesn't stop her from clipping the picture out of the newspaper - Chuck on her right, Sensei on her left, Jake behind her, and Herc standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Sensei.

(A week later, in their brand new drivesuits, Chuck and Mako stand at the feet of their Jaeger, Striker Tachyon; there are fresh blue streaks in her hair and a fuck-you-glare on Chuck's face. It is, by far, Mako's favorite picture of the two of them.)

===

The klaxon startles her out of her bunk before she's even fully awake, shoving Chuck's arm.

"Chuck! Kaiju!" she says, shimmying out of her pajamas and into her jumpsuit, hair over her face as Chuck pulls his own suit on, grumbling. He's not fully awake until someone bangs on the door.

"Mori! Hansen! Up and at 'em, let's go!"

They walk out of the door, half jogging to the drivesuit room, shedding clothing and pulling on the undersuits on, grinning at each other. It's been over a year, nearly two and this hasn't gotten old. Mako feels the tickle of anticipation in the back of her skull - something that's herself and something calling out to that part of Chuck's mind and body that fits so neatly with hers. She bares her teeth as Chuck pulls a face, both of them laughing.

"Ready to kick some ass?"

"Oh, after you, Mr. Hansen," she says, sweeping her arm out in a bow as they leave the room, helmets under their arms. They shove at each other, stepping into the cradle as the helmets go on, Tendo's voice soon coming through the comm links.

"Good morning, wunderkinds. Got a lovely Cat-3 off the coast of Alaska, codename: Knifehead," Tendo says, voice crackling as they hear the soft clack of his rosary beads near the mic.

"Oi, Elvis - Knifehead, really? How'd you come up with that one?" Chuck asks, grinning.

"Don't knock the system, brother," Tendo says, a grin evident in his voice.

Mako cuts Chuck off, grinning, "How was dinner with Alison last night?" she asks as Chuck makes kissing noises into the mic while Tendo snickers.

"Dinner with Alison was great; dessert with her and her boyfriend was even better," he says making Mako and Chuck groan.

"You're gonna get your ass kicked one day," Mako says as Tendo cuts off a laugh, clearing his throat.

"Marshall Pentecost, on deck," Tendo says and just like that, it's down to business. Going into the Drift, images of Herc and images of Sensei, laughter, pranks on Tendo. She closes her eyes against the wave of adrenaline from the first time they sparred in the Kwoon, hanbo staves going after one another. She hears a sharp inhale when it hits them, settling into every crevice as they go through calibration.

Later, she will tell the therapist everything she remembers. She remembers every single bit of heading out to the Miracle Mile. She remembers securing the boat, of Chuck huffing out a laugh as they dodged an iceberg while fighting a damned monster.

She doesn't tell her about grinning over at Chuck, arm burning but knowing the day was done. That they'd gotten their second kill that was all theirs. That it was only the second kill she and Chuck had to themselves that wasn't an assist. She tells the therapist about hearing the warning a split second too late, claws coming through the conn pod, panic from either her or Chuck as they tried to get out of the way. She never tells anyone about the terrified scream Chuck lets out as the claws grab the cradle. Mako finds that she can't speak to anyone about the terror and pain in Chuck's mind as he screamed her name, begging her to listen to him.

Mako never tells anyone that she sometimes wonders what he took with him and what he left behind.

Instead, Mako tells the therapist everything she can choke out without her throat clicking painfully into silence. She slips out with her arms wrapped around her middle protectively, steeling herself as she pulls down schematics and photos, wrapping them into a loose tube that goes into a case. Her tea set, a simple and pretty thing, gets left for Sensei, a note in neat, precise Kanji sending her love to him and Jake. It's the only note she leaves behind as she packs her things, not sure if something is hers or Chuck's; shirts, a hoodie (old and threadbare, with holes cut away from the thumbs), and a pair of gloves. She allows herself a bracelet that Chuck got while they were at the Jaeger Academy, paint rubbed away from the beads. It hangs heavy and large on her wrist and it feels like something is missing in her chest.

Everything is missing, she thinks, boarding a bus with one of Chuck's hats pulled over her eyes. She tries to sleep but the drivesuit burns ache with every scrape of fabric. It's nearly dawn, the bus rambling down to the next stop, Mako and one other man are the only two on the bus.

It's been three days since Chuck died.

===

Ghost Drifting is a phenomenon first recorded by Doctor Caitlin Lightcap back in the Mark-1 glory days. Mako has heard of stories, the mind settling back into itself - a way of coping, she's always thought. She's heard stories of pilots and Jaegers being as connected as any pair of pilots, each responding to one another.

Ghost Drifting is the knowledge that you are not alone in your own head. Ghost Drifting is a side effect.

Velcroing is another. The act of velcroing comes after disconnecting from the Drift, two pilots unable to disconnect as easily as wiring and machinery does - it finds them curled together, disentangling themselves from one another bit by bit.

But what happens, Mako wonders, to the brain when these side effects occur with someone who died while in the Drift. What part is left behind? What part gets taken?

She is ghosting with a dead man. A man who was ripped out of his cradle, screaming her name - a man who died while still in her head. Her brain feels seared from it, parts of her mind cauterized like a bleeding stump. She pushes a pillow to her chest, curling around it. Nothing aches because everything is numb. She tries to huddle underneath a thin blanket, ragged edges trailing across her cheeks as she buries her face into it. The stale scent of the Pentecost quarters lingers; home and family and everything that now feels like clothing shrunk in the wash. 

She is ghosting with a dead man and she wonders at the parts of him that are left inside her mind. Did he take her guilt and leave his anger or did she take his instead? Chuck, she thinks, would have taken as much as he gave; and Chuck always gave everything. She thinks of him, of his laugh and the sneer that made her want to punch him all over again. She thinks of bantering with Tendo, of the first time they pulled on a drivesuit - matching blues, the color of a sky before a storm. She doesn't think of their Jaeger, of her two families, or of Herc Hansen missing the son he saved years before.

She thinks of Chuck and ghosts with a dead man.

===

She finds work where she can; there aren't as many opportunities for a young girl who once was a Jaeger pilot. Her name is whispered from person to person - Mako survived in a world of death which is remarkable. She spends a few months on the Wall, welding and staying so cold that she feels frozen from the inside out.

A year passes and she finds that there are still some jobs to be done for private buyers. Those who buy up the old and abandoned Shatterdomes - the PPDC is slowly downsizing; if slowly destroying the Jaeger program can be called downsizing.

Mako spends the first anniversary of Chuck's death in a drunken haze at the top of the Alaska Shatterdome. She wraps herself in a ratty comforter and drinks with the sound of his voice rolling around in her head. Anger thrums through her sometimes, anger that she knows isn't her own (her own is slow to ignite but burns fast; Chuck's temper was as fast as dynamite and twice as destructive); she keeps it close to the parts of her that miss Chuck like she would her own limb. She fills them up as much as anger will allow and remembers Sensei telling her that vengeance is an open wound; she wonders if Chuck's anger will cauterize the need for it.

She leaves Anchorage the next day, on her way to a Shatterdome that is less familiar than the last. They all feel like an alternate universe, one she should be familiar with but she still turns to look over her shoulder for the familiar smirk on Chuck’s face. 

She's in Lima when she hears about the Council convening to discuss the fate of the PPDC. In the background of the newscast, she can see a familiar face - Jake, dressed just as sharply as Sensei had taught him, going toe to toe with those arguing against the PPDC. When she sees him on the screen, she pauses, listening to his impassioned defense and it is with difficulty that she tears her vision away.

It is in Lima when she hears that Tendo is there. Mako hears Chuck in her head, that sense that he's still there. It’s still strong and vibrant as ever; the sense that he's never going to leave her still remains. Tendo is somewhere in the Shatterdome (what's left of it) dismantling LOCCENT. Before everything - the Jaeger academy, Knifehead, all of it - she remembers buying bow-ties in every city they were in. A small kindness for the man who helped her acclimate to the life in a Shatterdome.

Tendo taught her how to navigate the barter system for each Shatterdome; the best ways to trade and the best people to trade with. He introduced her to the Russian pilots, Sasha and Aleksis Kaidanovsky, who can get everyone anything. She remembers the scent of coffee and after-shave, and all it would take to see Tendo again is to climb into an elevator and go to LOCCENT.

She could go to a piece of home, taking what comfort he would offer. He could tell her about Sensei and Jake and she could go home. The thought is like her shoulder being out of socket, like the first time she and Chuck engaged a Kaiju. She remembers Chuck’s wince as she had it reset, her own nausea overtaking the memory. Mako thinks about going to see Tendo and knows it would be like slipping her shoulder out again. 

Instead, she pulls Chuck’s hat on and goes out into the city. She stops at the small vendors who remain, the ones who feed the crew who are tearing down the Lima Shatterdome. She eats mechanically and watches the sunset, unable to consider facing someone from before her Jaeger fell and she lost half of herself.

The evening turns into night, dark and inky without a star in sight; Mako pulls her phone from her pocket and slowly swipes through the photos. Two years pass without fanfare, tears on her cheeks as she looks at friends and family that she left. She lingers on the last picture of herself and Chuck; remembering him holding the phone out, fumbling to hold onto it. She remembers laughter and the feeling of Chuck beside her and Mako finds that she can't scroll past the picture. The white glow illuminates her face and when she looks up and out, over the city, her eyes need a moment to adjust.

Two years have passed.

===

She goes to Sydney, chancing it for the opportunity to help dismantle a Jaeger for parts. Vulcan Spectre is set for deconstruction, ready to be broken down for parts to build newer and better Jaegers. Mako's heard about the plans from China for a ground-breaking Jaeger, needing all the parts that a Shatterdome can spare.

Mako spends her days buried in Vulcan, getting to know him, learning what makes him tick. The volunteers around her make it a daily practice to greet one another and share their green-stamped ration booklets. She puts her own (stamped with Ranger gold, the eagle's shine long since worn off) into the pot, the ones from working the high risk positions and watches them smile at her. They never mention her name or that they know exactly who she is, but they work with her quietly as they work from the top down.

She spends her nights sharing quarters with three others - Alex, from London, who sounds enough like Sensei and Jake to make her homesick. There's Bennu, who had spent a year in the safe zone in Germany, and Finn, who kept to themself in and out of quarters and never seems to mention Mako's turn in the program. Mako sits with them sometimes, quietly reading from a battered tablet while Finn and Alex and Bennu talk about home. Mako doesn't know anyone else working with the deconstruction project that well but she feels a certain kinship with these three.

They talk quietly around her, a low buzz that lulls her to sleep slowly but surely. She wakes up with the blanket tucked around her lightly and her tablet on the small egg-crate beside a half-full steaming cup of tea. They share everything (as much as they are able) and she finishes the tea quickly before she gets dressed. There are rumors that the Beckets will be in today, overseeing some of the process as they wait for their own Jaeger to be finished.

The Beckets have jockeyed for almost every Shatterdome that would allow them to test the new Jaegers. They discovered the bug that would have brought Striker Tachyon to its knees; the one that she and Chuck had shaken their hands over. Raleigh and Yancy Becket, she thinks wryly of their golden boy smiles, pulling her boots on before she shoves her hair under a cap. They were nice, she remembers; eager to help like most everyone else.

Mako doesn't remember why they didn't have a Mark-3, only that she and Chuck had gotten the last one. The one that was put on reserve half the time until the Council felt that they had the experience. She doesn't hear the customary snort from Chuck that normally rattles around in her chest but she knows what he'd say about it, the same thing he always did. The same thing that Yancy Becket always agreed with; that the Council didn't know what they wanted unless it was election season.

She thinks of the sweet, happy smiles that Raleigh Becket would give her (and the sneer on Chuck's face in response is a close memory even now, almost three years later) and she makes a decision to avoid the Beckets if possible. Mako works with the ground crew, pulling apart each leg of the massive machine, salvaging every single piece they can; when they started, it had felt a bit like being vultures. Now it just feels like a job.

After three years, Mako doesn't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

===

The cold is fierce and biting as it only can be in Alaska. It whips at her hair and her cheeks, leaving them feeling burned and bruised before she pulls her scarf up and over to protect from the wind. In the back of her mind she can hear Chuck bitching about it and it's with a small sense of dismay (and anger - like it’s the last thing of Chuck she clings to) that she realizes his voice is slowly starting to fade. The scar is still painful and sharp, like it will never heal, but she has a moment - before the transport picks her up - to realize that in four years, he hasn't left her.

She wonders if she's leaving him instead.

The transport takes her to the Icebox, remembering the day when Tendo welcomed them to it, uniform on with the shine of his newly minted Commander wings, waiting for them with a broad grin. She remembers the ink on his forearm and his neck, black on tan skin and the white of his teeth.

Mako remembers the hug he gave them both, the way that even now she can remember his arms around her. Four years on and Mako finds herself craving human contact; the sense of velcroing that never left after losing Chuck. She remembers the way she fit with Chuck - simple and easy, shoving and pushing however they needed to. She’s gone into town a few times, finding a local who didn’t ask too many questions and let her forget herself and the gnawing ache for connection that she can’t remember who it belonged to first; her or Chuck.

She makes it to Alaska with bruises on her hips fading to yellow as she gets her rations and heads to the back entrance of the Icebox; tip-toeing through the nearly silent Shatterdome to get to her assigned quarters for the job (Mako has always known all of the ways in and out every place she’s ever slept. It’s the last holdover from the year-long stay with her extended family; Mako neither wanted nor unwanted. The only contact she likes to remember from then is Sensei’s warm smile during their weekly video chat. He taught her the first back door of the first Shatterdome she was ever in - Tokyo’s. It came with a small officer’s balcony that later became Sensei’s after a forced retirement and promotion). 

The Icebox is mostly deserted these days. They're closing Shatterdomes down left and right, funnelling everyone to Hong Kong. If the techs from Sydney are to be believed - and that's another case entirely, to be honest, she thinks fondly - they're preparing for something big. Every Shatterdome she goes to has a different story, only that it’s big and not spoken about outside of the ‘Dome.

She meets her employer, an older woman who goes by Chen ("Just Chen?" Mako asks quietly as they walk. The older woman - Chen - turns to look at her with hair the shade of steel-wool and sharp, dark eyes gives her a humorless smile, "Only Chen," she corrects quietly.) who leads her through the nearly deserted Jaeger bay floor. It feels empty and aching, like the others before have not. Mako doesn't hear Chuck in her head and she isn't sure if that's because here is where they nearly broke or if because here is where they came together. She thinks if she concentrates she can see all the ways that she, Jake, and Sensei learned how to be a family here.

"What do you need?" Mako asks as Chen pulls some reading glasses on (Mako has no idea where she got them from inside the crisply tailored apple-green suit; it looks likes poison draped over her regal frame). She peers down at the files in her arm before she extracts one and hands it over.

"You'll be dismantling LOCCENT. I'm told you have some experience in those offices; Commander Choi needs the parts in Hong Kong next week. After that, we'll negotiate," Chen says, giving Mako a kind, if stern look, as Mako nods.

Her jumpsuit (once a dark blue, the same dark blue as PPDC issued uniforms but has since turned to gray) rustles as she adjusts the files and watches Chen walk off. She is in complete control of the Shatterdome around her and for a moment Mako wishes she was in Hong Kong with Alison and Tendo and Sensei and Jake. Most of all, she misses Sensei and Jake. She can't think of what she would say to them after four years though; four years with just a simple note of love and apology left with a tea set bought for her years ago. 

Instead, she takes the elevator up to LOCCENT, making a list of what needs to be done first. All of the essential pieces to running LOCCENT have already been taken away; screens, irreplaceable pieces of equipment, and any knick-knacks that once were there. Mako runs her fingers over a tacky circle just above Tendo's station, the spot slightly lighter than the metal beneath it - Chuck had, on more than one occasion, gotten Tendo anything that was tiny, tacky, and typically annoying.

Tendo once had said it was very telling of Chuck to buy something just as annoying as him and she remembers the fond laughter. The tacky spot pulls at the pads of her fingertips as she tries to remember what was there. She thinks it might have been the hula girl figure that Chuck had gotten God only knows where - the one that he'd knock with his finger any chance he got to set the figurine rocking. Looking out over the empty, dingy bay, she feels the emptiness echoing around her as she puts her bag down, ready to work.

She carries a screwdriver with her; two actually, both gifts from their crew - one large and one small. She wonders what Herc did with Chuck's set. She wonders at what Chuck would say now and how harsh it would be. Her chest hurts and her eyes burn as she steadily begins to take the panels apart. The wires within are always better to have than not - "Can never tell when one'll go up in smoke; sometimes literally!" Tendo said, laughing as he fished a set of wiring out of the small case that stayed in his back pocket. At fifteen, Mako and Chuck watched him intently, eager for any scrap of information. After that, Mako remembers Chuck always carrying a set of wiring with him. Chuck had been so eager to accept any advice offered to him by someone that wasn’t his father, Jake had once said, inspiring one of the many arguments Mako had with him. 

Moments such as that are the moments that she can't get out of her head. The moments of hearing him laugh and seeing his face twist in it. She holds them close but when she thinks of his sneer and his challenging smirk in the Kwoon, they are what she holds closest to her heart. Vengeance may have been an open wound, but the anger she shared with Chuck had bonded them as close as any other pair of rangers. 

But four years is an awful long time to be alone, she reminds herself, shaking her head and getting back to work.

===

Tokyo in springtime is nothing like she remembers. Nothing blooms in Tokyo any longer, the city still reduced to rubble in most places. There are other areas that survived but standing at the access road to the Tokyo Shatterdome - or what used to be the Tokyo Shatterdome - is disheartening. She can remember walking along the access road with Jake, Tamsin, and Sensei as two of them recovered and she worked on her English. There used to be a set of benches that were perfectly placed for them to take a break. She used to sit with Tamsin, looking up at tired eyes and bright hair, getting a warm smile and a light kiss on the forehead as Jake and Sensei play-wrestled. 

She remembers their laughter even as she looks around the now barren road.

The Shatterdome looms in the distance, a sight that used to bring comfort and now simply brings exhaustion. She can imagine Chuck's anger at the job before her and she finds that it keeps her far warmer than the jacket around her shoulders in the early, still chilly spring. A private buyer - a young-ish Japanese woman with a gentle smile who requests that Mako refer to her by her first name; Keiko wants the Shatterdome dismantled and Mako feels a little sick at helping with that.

Chuck's anger (and her own, perhaps, in a distant sort of way) burns through her but a woman in Mako's position has to eat. She has rations cards and a key to unlock the padlock and chain on the fence to go into the deserted place. The power, Mako understands from a brief, clipped phone conversation, is already turned on and it merely takes the flick of a switch to have the lights humming as they warm.

She’s the first to come back to this particular Shatterdome, the way she generally prefers it.

Something wells up inside her chest, painful and harsh as she looks over the empty bays and deserted floor. Mako thinks of Sensei and of Tamsin (gone two and a half years now) in the Shatterdome. She waits until the lights are on, strips of landing lights flickering weakly as she walks across the floor, searching out one bay in particular.

Coyote Tango was more than Sensei and Tamsin's Jaeger, Mako knows, finding it soon. It's impossible to miss - the logo spray-painted messily across part of the wall in crimson; Tamsin's handiwork, Mako thinks, smiling to herself. She reaches out to touch it, expecting the paint to still be wet and dripping and instead, it's simply cool to the touch.

The cold seeps into her hand, reminding her of Alaska and the drivesuit scars along her ribs ache. She looks up at the logo, the crimson paint huge and warm, in it's own way, and comforting. She moves away from the wall, placing her bags onto the ground at the base of the wall, looking around the Shatterdome.

She strides out on the floor, looking around the interior of an empty Shatterdome. The Jaeger bays are empty and she thinks that it wouldn't take much to get back to Sensei; to her Shatterdome that's full of life. Mako thinks of the aching space in her chest, yawning with pain and a ghost drift with a man who was never recovered.

Mako walks back to Coyote Tango's bay, steps echoing through the main floor of the Shatterdome. Steeling herself, she lowers herself to the floor beneath Coyote's logo, pulling a tablet out, ready to work.

***

The Tokyo Shatterdome is coming down, slowly but surely. Piece by piece, Mako watches the sheets of steel get loaded into a truck and she wonders if the scrap steel will go to the Wall or straight into Hong Kong.

There's a drill slung over her shoulders, heavy and comfortable in the same way that putting her drivesuit and circuitry suit on was; grounding, in so many ways. The memory of suiting up before that last drop chokes the air out of her (blue, so blue; looking to her right and seeing Chuck, baring his teeth in a feral, hungry grin in the feedback cradle) but that is a horrifyingly familiar sensation after five years. She shifts the drill in front of her and slides into the small chair-lift that hoists her up to the top of a panel.

Bolts pulled off end up in a pouch that she's looped cross-wise around her body; they clank against each other and it feels as if it echoes in her head as people below shout and laugh. The other workers (those desperate enough to eat and work) don't speak to her unless it's about the job and it would be lonely if she had anything to say. Mako finishes one section of bolts, waving her hand to be brought down.

It is slow work, in some ways, when she's lost in her mind and memories that aren't hers but five years ago she took them into herself as if providing them shelter. The day passes in overwhelming silence save for the snatched moment of a half-remembered song that Chuck used to sing when working. 

 

It is the only company she allows herself after five years.

***

Four months later and the news comes through - Sydney is shutting down officially. Lady Danger will be retired to Hong Kong and disgust curls her lips as she slams her equipment around. Anger - both hers and Chuck's - burns through her, making her cheeks flush as she pushes strands of dirty black hair under the cap that has become ragged with constant wear.

The bolts is thrown onto the table, spilling out as people give her a wide berth even despite the sneers she has long grown accustomed to ignoring. She rips open the rations packet, peering at what it claims to be. The packet is hot and it claims to be ribs and while she can't be sure that's actually what they are, they're hot and filling for the moment.

The TV's going on and on about Lady Danger and the Beckets - beaten and battered white drivesuits, blonde hair, and big grins from past interviews. Mako watches the news detail the decision about Sydney shutting down, the ceremony from earlier in the day. The sun shining on them as Yancy Becket's mouth turns into a sharp, fierce frown; on his left, as always, Raleigh Becket stands. His hair blows in the breeze and the frown on his own face is almost a perfect mirror of his brothers. They look stern in a way she’s never seen on them before, no sense of humor left in the lines of their faces.

Mako steadily makes her way through her meal, barely tasting it as she stares at the TV without really watching it. The news breaks in and there's a Kaiju on the screen - huge and gray, an enormous crest on its head shining in the late afternoon sun as it crashes through the Wall in a matter of minutes.

"We're here in Sydney where just minutes ago, a Kaiju just broke through the Wall. I repeat, a Kaiju has broken through the Sydney Wall."

The ration packet turns cold in her hand as she stares at the scratched screen; people who had formerly been milling around, waiting their turn to heat up rations, stop and stare. She watches Lady Danger take the Kaiju down in a familiar, messy, reckless fashion and she sneers at the screen. The Beckets have always been messy and reckless and seeing the people on the roof, she can't help but spare a thought for them - even if it is ridiculous to be on the roof while a Kaiju attacks.

In the middle of gathering the spilled bolts, she hears the sound of a Sikorsky. It's distinctive; deeper and longer than a helicopter, roaring in the wind as it touches down. People turn and Mako stalks to the entrance, wondering who it's going to be as people clear out of her way faster than before. She can hear their murmuring and her neck bristles as she endeavors to ignore them.

The door opens and instead of Sensei, or even, perhaps, Tendo, she stares at Herc Hansen stepping down onto the pavement. She watches him thank the attendants as the Sikorsky begins to power down. Mako has not seen Herc Hansen in five years (and four months, Chuck's voice reminds her stubbornly) and it seems that he hasn't changed.

His hair is still the same shade of red and he's still clean-shaven though he missed a spot under his jaw. She stares at it for a moment before meeting his eyes. He's wearing a suit, impeccably tailored and she can see Sensei's handiwork as she looks him over. The coat he wears is dark (wool, if she had to guess) - the sort that Sensei had once gifted her when she and Chuck left for the Jaeger Academy in Alaska. Hers had been a deep indigo, soft and warm; Herc's is a deep and dark maroon that is far closer to rust than anything she's seen. He gives her a gentle smile that doesn't reach his clear, blue eyes.

"Ms. Mori," he says easily.

"Ranger Hansen."

"Just Herc. It's been a while," he says, offering his hand. She shakes it and feels frozen all of a sudden.

"Five years," she murmurs, "four months."

He nods and clears his throat, looking behind her to the crowd that tries to appear as if they don't care to overhear when Mako leads him back to the main area. The area that was once the entrance to the Shatterdome floor is now an equipment storage area but doubles as a meager mess hall.

"How have you been?" he asks softly; gently, even. She opens her mouth to speak when the TV flashes to a live interview from the rubble of Sydney streets.

"Ranger Hansen, what do you have to say on the Becket's takedown of Mutavore?" the reporter asks and Mako startles just as hard as Herc at the man standing on the streets with the reporter. He's wearing his own protective gear like the kind they hand out to first responders now. For a moment, Mako can only see Chuck in his face. 

Scott Hansen always was a handsome man, she thinks bitterly.

"Oh, call me Scott, please," he says, smiling brightly as the reporter lets out a muffled titter as he straightens up. He makes himself larger, Mako notices as Herc sucks in a sharp breath, "It's clear that the PPDC is struggling. The program's defunding and the Beckets being here for a decommissioning? I tell you, it's the grace of God that those boys were here today."

Mako watches Scott Hansen lean in closer to the reporter and her stomach heaves and rolls as she remembers (very briefly) the hearing that drummed him out of the PPDC. Of the long and slow process it was before it was all pushed under the rug. She remembers Chuck's loud, seething anger and Herc's quiet resignation. She never found out what it was that Herc saw but she turns to him now.

"I've been well," she says firmly, turning away from the TV. Herc's face is pale with shock, but he focuses on her with some effort. A flare in her chest makes her think of Chuck and chasing a RABIT of their shared childhoods of homes and families being destroyed. She wonders if Herc would chase that RABIT of his own. She breaks away from that to finally meet Herc’s eyes (Chuck’s eyes, she knows from photos, were Angela Hansen’s eyes. In a way, it is easier to meet Herc’s eyes because of this).

"But you're not here to ask after my health, are you?"

Herc gives her a wry smile as he pushes his hands into the pockets of his coat; the fine, dark wool makes his ginger hair seem all the more aflame and the missed spot of stubble seems to glow in the dim morning light. "Not quite," he says, clearing his throat before he peers back at the TV.

"Well, that is the way of it, isn't it, love?" Scott asks, bright smile and laugh echoing through the mess area. Herc looks nauseous for a long moment and Mako can't stand it any longer. She jabs her finger over the mute button, bringing up halting captions before Herc meets her eyes in relief.

A voice that sounds suspiciously like Chuck reminds her that Scott always did know just how to charm everyone he met.

"The Marshall needs you in Hong Kong, Mako," Herc says firmly, "one last push for the Breach."

Mako sucks in a sharp breath in surprise. There have been rumors through the Shatterdomes and in the market stalls - Marshall Pentecost trying to get funding. Marshall Pentecost shoring up a flagging program. Marshall Pentecost trying to stem an open wound with nothing more than a butterfly bandage - and Mako is, all at once, taken aback to find out that the rumors are true.

"Why me?"

"There's an old Mark-3 that needs a pilot," Herc says, meeting her eyes as the roaring of her blood fills her ears. The old, empty spaces flare up, anger that's not wholly her own rushing through her before she realizes just what this means for Herc. She lost a copilot and part of her own self but Herc lost his son. It doesn’t mean that his grief is worse than hers but she knows what it costs him to offer her this last chance. She wonders, briefly, what promises Sensei had to make in order to ask him to come out to Tokyo to ask this.

"I can't pilot again."

"Can't or won't?" he asks softly, nearly lost to the sounds of the machinery around them.

"Both. I can't have anyone else in my head again," Mako says stubbornly as Herc nods slowly. He attempts to push his hands deeper into his pockets even though they won't go any further. He doesn't meet her eyes for a long moment before he pulls one out to wipe at his face lightly.

"Where do you wanna die, Mako? Here, listening to that?" he asks, motioning to the TV that's a split-screen now (one side is the Beckets helping to clear rubble from the streets. The streets are a mess after the battle, viscera everywhere but the Beckets are, at least, helping; the other is Scott Hansen making a pretty girl laugh and lean closer and it leaves a sour taste in the back of her throat), "or in a Jaeger?"

Mako watches the screen for a long, hard moment before she shoulders her bag and meets his eyes finally. Herc doesn't smile at her but he gives her a nod in understanding. She has a brief sense memory of floating back to shore and she wonders if, perhaps, that is even more telling than she would have ever known.

===

They land in Hong Kong amidst rain and wind, buffeting her from all sides as she sees an all-too familiar form on the tarmac. Her breath catches and she clutches the belt at her waist hard enough that her knuckles crack and whiten. Herc looks to her and gently presses his hand to her shoulder. She starts and stares at him, feeling shock trickling down the back of her neck as she starts to sweat in the cold air.

She remembers Sensei teaching her how to block, how to use the forms from the Kwoon, laughing with her, and having tea on Sundays together. She has spent the last five years (and four months) hoarding any and all moments they had once spent together. Sundays were a time for tea, sometimes the tea he remembered as a child and sometimes tea from the set that had been gifted to him in Japan after Onibaba. Mako remembers teaching him the intricacies that he did not know, looking up at the man who had saved her life in a marvel of machinery. She remembers video chatting with Tamsin after tea, no matter what. The sound of their accents winding around hers like a new home and the silence that followed once Mako had left.

Looking out onto the tarmac, she sees Sensei holding an umbrella to protect himself from the wind and rain, holding another in the crook of his arm as the Sikorsky's door opens. The blades stir her hair as Herc slides out of the Sikorsky, opening and offering the umbrella to her as she waves it off in favor of standing under Sensei's.

"Ms. Mori," he says quietly, meeting her eyes. He looks exhausted, skin stretched over bones, and she attempts a weak smile for him. The corner of his lips quirk up in response and his eyes warm, taking her in. She watches him before ducking her head, hair whipping across her face and sticking to her lips. It feels as if she is a young girl again, meeting the hero who helped save her and the man who wanted to take her home to raise as his own. 

"Marshall," she returns as they walk toward the entrance of the Shatterdome. Herc takes their umbrella as they stand in the elevator. They hear shouting and she sees familiar faces. Hermann Gottlieb had been an easy presence in her life as she waited to join the Jaeger Academy. He had taught easily while Newt ("Mori! Holy shit, where the hell have you been?" he enthuses as she murmurs something vague in response, hoping it's what he was expecting) had distracted.

Chuck had always rather liked Newt, she remembers suddenly. He was often annoying and frustrating for all parties involved but she remembers Chuck laughing at his antics more often than not. Mako exchanges a glance with Dr. Gottlieb who gives her a gentle, warm smile before he falls into arguing with Newt with an old familiarity.

"I'll give you two a minute," Herc mutters, stepping to the side and striding down a hallway leaving just her and Sensei standing side by side in front of closing elevator doors.

They stand in silence as they walk down the hallway and she chances glances over to him before he clears his throat carefully before they walk towards the floor of the Shatterdome.

"How have you been?" he asks quietly, looking to her. He holds himself different; stiffly, even. He's always been a quiet man but he seems changed in some way that she can't place her finger on.

"Alive," she says after a moment of silence. She isn't sure what to say and it seems to catch him off-guard as his lips thin and he nods slowly. They're next to the door for the Shatterdome floor as he reaches for his badge to open it as she turns to him, "What if I can't pilot again."

It isn’t a question; it is a statement that she can’t help but test him with. She knows, like she knows Chuck’s wavelengths from her own, that he will hear what she needs him to hear. She can’t fathom climbing into another Jaeger, not with anyone who won’t understand the loss. Mako meets his eyes, taking in the lines around his face and how they have deepened over the last five years. When she looks at Sensei, she is suddenly aware that she has carried her last sense memory of Chuck (scared, hopeless, pained, _angry_ ) around like a favored book and for the first time in five years, that sense of him is quiet.

He watches her in silence and vaguely, she remembers this being his way of waiting for her to explain - it had worked for her when she was a child but now it only serves to get under her skin. She clenches her fists, wanting to punch something and knowing that the urge is not entirely her own.

"Can't or won't?" he asks as the door slides open. A wave of sound breaks against them, familiar and warm. It's as familiar to her as the sound of her father in the forge; a source of comfort and familiarity. Hong Kong was never her permanent port but it seems as good of a place as any to come home to.

"Both," she responds, stubborn and feeling more than a little sick at the thought of another Jaeger.

"You are the last Mark-3 pilot, you know," he says as she sneers at him, feeling a dead man at her shoulder. He shoots her a stern, biting look as she huffs out a sigh, walking with him across the floor. Techs stop to stare at her and she aches to get her hands dirty fixing a Jaeger instead of taking one apart.

"You are the last," he repeats, voice gentle and as she remembers his patience, "and I need you with me on this, Mako," he says in an almost pleading undertone that she nearly misses. She stops in the middle of the floor, staring at him as she hears the familiar foghorn of Cherno Alpha and the Kaidanovskies. She watches them stride in and she feels lost and found all in the same breath.

"Why me?" she challenges.

"There’s only one other person I’d have at my back here and now," he says, casting a glance towards Herc. He stands with the techs, laughing at something one of them calls out. He looks vibrant and alive in that moment, reminding her of Chuck. Sensei looks to her knowingly as she opens her mouth to speak, cut off only by the sound of raucous laughter from the Beckets; fresh from Sydney. They look exhausted and the epitome of glory as if they were posing for a magazine cover. Mako, for a moment, hates them both.

"What's the play then?" she asks, crossing her arms over her chest, watching him. She is, despite it all, curious as to what his plan is.

"We're going to strap a thermonuclear warhead to Lady Danger's back and take it down to the Breach. I need all hands on deck and you are my last Mark-3 pilot," he says with a quiet conviction that quiets the swelling rage that she attributes to Chuck and the pieces he left behind. She has pushed those angry pieces into the holes left by his death and she feels as if she is thawing out now after five years while she purses her lips, looking over the Jaegers before her.

"I would like to go to my quarters," she says quietly. Stacker nods and turns to walk off of the floor when she sees Herc approaching. He gives her an apologetic smile and she notices his vest is the same one that she's seen a million times. There's a darker spot where a patch used to be but it's still the same worn Lucky Seven vest that she knows he can't bring himself to get rid of.

"Marshall, the Prime Minister would like a word."

Sensei sighs harshly, looking at Mako with an apology written across his face. She shoulders her bag, turning her back on the Beckets (she can feel their eyes on her, just like everyone else. She ignores it all in favor of meeting Sensei's eyes) as she nods her head respectfully. It isn't a forgiveness or a request for the same but by the way Sensei straightens, she knows that he understands her as he always has.

"Herc, would you mind showing Ms. Mori to her quarters?"

It isn't quite a dismissal, not with Sensei meeting her eyes and returning the same respectful nod with a sad sort of cant to his lips. Mako watches him walk away before she turns to Herc, following him wordlessly.

They are halfway up to the second level of operations when she stops dead, bag sliding off of her shoulder and to the ground as a forceful exhale leaves her feeling hollow and stunned.

"Striker," she murmurs, chest fit to burst from the longing. Everything in her wants to be shoulders deep in the wiring of the conn-pod. She walks to the railway and feels rather than hears Herc standing beside her respectfully.

"How d'you like the new ride, Wunderkind?" comes from behind them as Mako whirls around, staring at Tendo.

He looks tired (exhausted, really), but he's beaming at her like he did after her and Chuck's first successful deployment. She feels herself breaking out into a wide grin, flinging herself into his arms for a hug. He hugs her tight as she presses her face reverently against his neck, smelling grease and pomade and Alison's perfume. He groans out a laugh as she pulls back, grinning for the first time in years.

"How the hell have you been?" she asks, thanking Herc absently for her bag. He shrugs, shoving his hands into his pockets as she falls into conversation with Tendo.

Close to her Jaeger and friends, she thinks, it was inevitable that this would happen. Striker Tachyon is not just a piece of machinery, it is the last piece of her soul. She remembers the night before their first drop, Chuck antsy and annoying and when she looks to Striker, she could swear it is her memory layered over this new reality until Tendo starts talking again.

===

She wakes with a strangled scream trapped in her throat, the scent of burning metal, blood, and the sound of Chuck's screams echoing in her ears and her mind. Damp sweat pulls her shirt tight against her ribs, twisted and she hears seams pop as she jerks it off of herself; she sits in bed, naked to the waist, gasping for air. Her hands shake in adrenaline as she grasps for a clean shirt beside the bed.

Mako changes with precise efficiency, wiping her forehead on the dirty shirt before she tosses it on a chair in a heap. Her heart's still thumping painfully in her chest and the fine tremors in her hands are nearly impossible to squash as she slides her feet into shoes and steps out into the hallway.

The hallway is colder than her room, the air pulling at the strands of hair stuck to the sweat on her neck as she aimlessly wanders. The hallways blend into one another before she realizes where she's ended up.

The door before her is nondescript as any other on this strip of the hallway; it is, in fact, just like her own. It is propped open only enough for the sound of low music and voices to drift out into the hallway. The music is an undercurrent to the soft tones of Sensei and Herc Hansen talking quietly as they always have.

"You can't just expect her to hop back in, Stacks," Herc says, voice rising as Mako steps forward on one foot, ready to walk away when she hears Sensei speak in calm and measured tones.

"I need her, Herc. I need the both of you at my back," Sensei says as Mako struggles to breathe through the ripping sensation in her chest. Panic thrums through her briefly at the thought of climbing into another Jaeger and a new copilot and she slides back a step, ready to walk away when Herc clears his throat.

"Both?"

"Both," Sensei responds as Mako pivots on her heel, making her way up to LOCCENT, sitting with Tendo in companionable silence, watching the night shift coming onto the Shatterdome floor. Tendo smells of grease and pomade and Alison, just as before, and she curls her feet into a chair and looks over to him.

"Give me something to do," she says finally as Tendo looks over to her, cup of coffee halfway to his mouth. He takes a slow sip and shrugs, handing her a tablet.

"Watch those values. Let me know if the blue one goes above eighty," Tendo says as she lets herself fade into the background. The work is slow and while it isn't soothing, she still finds herself curled in the chair, focused on the blue value until she slips into a fitful sleep.

She comes back to wakefulness slowly and then all at once, knowing someone is looking at her.

"Mori," Tendo says softly, kneeling at her chair as she blinks and focuses on him. Her eyes feel heavy and gritty as she rubs at them. He puts a hand on hers and she nearly jerks it back; contact after five years of nothing feels as if it will burn her. He clears his throat, "shift's over, Wunderkind. Let's go to bed, yeah?"

Mako arches an eyebrow at him, hearing the offer as Tendo gives her a small smile, looking over to Alison in the doorway. Alison is watching them both intently; she gives Mako a smile, warm and knowing before she nods. Mako clears her throat, pushing herself out of the chair and away from Tendo.

"Just come have a drink," Alison says, her accent strong and familiar as Mako's stomach flips and turns. Alison is softer than she remembers and Mako knows they had a son in the last year. She wonders if he's at the Shatterdome with them both.

"Just one," she murmurs, following them out of LOCCENT.

===

She stands at the doorway of the Kwoon, Sensei and Herc at her back. She stares at the crowd across from her, bare toes curling into the spongy mat. The hanbo staff in her hands is a welcome focus for her hands as she meets the eager eyes of Jin, Hu, and Cheung standing side by side with Aleksis and Sasha. They are, all five of them, pieces of her pieced together family and Mako returns the careful twist of Sasha's lips as candidate after candidate steps forward.

She dispatches them quickly. Some get slammed to the floor and her muscles burn with memory of Chuck's face twisting into a laugh even as she sweeps Jiang's legs out from under her. Jiang is a tech and has always been a tech. Mako remembers gentle fingers pressed to her cheek and the laughing lips under her own when she was first stationed in Hong Kong. Regret tinges the edges of the memory before it bleeds into Chuck's pleased laughter. Mako offers Jiang an apologetic grimace before they bow to one another.

Mako thinks that she could maybe pilot with Jiang in another life.

Instead, she finds herself catching sight of Herc's awkward shifting and twist of his lips as she straightens, helping another candidate off of the floor. Her blood is singing and her pulse thrums in her ears like the roar of the wind outside. In her head and her heart, she hears Chuck's mocking laughter at the candidates lined before her, another one stepping forward.

She salutes them, hanbo cracking against hanbo and she loses herself to the quick match. Mako looks up and huffs out an angry growl.

"What?" she demands, spreading her arms wide, staring over at Herc. He blinks as Sensei's lips purse slowly (in amusement or annoyance, Mako isn’t sure). Mako pushes the point of her staff into the mat, glaring up at Herc with a sneer that is not entirely her own, "You keep making that face. What is it?"

"You're better than this," Herc says evenly as she hears the low murmur from behind her. Mako tilts her head, looking to Herc and Sensei curiously. Sensei is watching Herc as Mako tilts her head back, shaking hair away from her sweaty cheeks.

"Am I?" she mocks, Chuck's mannerisms settling over her limbs like a favorite sweater. She can hear the Beckets behind her and she keeps her eyes trained on Herc. He shifts, settling into a stance that is startlingly like Chuck and Mako can still feel the Drift reaching for him as though they’ve been Drifting this whole time. Herc clears his throat, rubbing a hand over his chin and jaw thoughtfully.

"You could have taken all of them down at least three moves earlier. And you know it," Herc says as Sensei closes his eyes briefly. She takes a half step forward, lips curling in something that is closer to a smile than she'd like.

"You really think that?"

"I know it," Herc says evenly.

"Let him have a chance, then, Marshall," she says, meeting Sensei's eyes. There is a challenge thrumming through her that is entirely her own. It is the challenge that she used to associate with striving to be better and striving to show Chuck up, even in the name of friendly competition. For once, his ghost is silent, even as his rage that she has held onto for five long years warms her belly and chest.

Sensei's face is wooden and firm even as she meets his eyes for a final moment before she looks to Herc. Herc is watching Sensei as he always has before Sensei nods. Herc hands the candidate files over before he skims his uniform jacket off as well as the shirt of his uniform. Clad in his undershirt and slacks, he finally removes his his shoes and socks. His feet are pale and creased with the imprint of his sock pattern. There's a rush of murmuring from the crowd and Mako thinks she sees Tendo standing between the Weis.

Mako's eyes fall on the extensive scarring along Herc's shoulders; remnants of the last time he jockeyed. The time when he ripped himself out of the feedback cradle to nearly kill his brother. Even knowing what occurred and what lead to it, a piece of Mako is stunned to see the vivid and raised keloids decorating his shoulders as though they are the weight of the world. In a way, she supposes (thinking of her own circuitry scars down her right side), they are.

She barely hears Sensei give the go ahead to start as she rushes him, hanbo staves clacking sharply in a way that reverberates along the entire length of her arm. Herc settles into his stance, even more solid than she remembers. If she is the fire of the forge, he is the steel ready to be remade.

The rage in her stomach settles into something able to temper this fight in the same way her father would temper steel to form swords. She lets it temper her now, lets go of some of it as she moves lightly, moving with Herc before she strikes; her staff touches his shoulder as she smirks at him.

"One-nothing," she calls out. Herc tilts his head and a smile crosses his face before he springs into a flurry of movement, staff stopping in front of her face.

"One-one," he murmurs, eyes brightening as she bares her teeth. She lunges at him, chasing him around the mat and suddenly the room drops away. She is aware of Sensei cautioning her and she lets that wash over her, planting herself in the way she was taught once even before finding her own style. She flows with and around Herc as though she has always done it.

Anger is a heat under her skin like a fever. She pushes it away, letting the feeling and thought of Chuck fade to the back of her mind without realizing it. She lets go of him abruptly, seeking this new Drift that eludes her every time Herc meets her Hanbo staff with his own. The fever breaks as she moves with Herc finally, a push and pull that stays restrained until she can feel something being remade. Sweat pours from her as Herc's shirt darkens from the sweat as well. 

She is exhausted. 

She is exhilarated.

Chest heaving, she drops to her knees, taking Herc off-guard, dragging his leg and hip off of the floor before leveling the staff at his neck. He grins at her, quiksilver bright and something breaks and then settles inside of her. Excitement burbles up inside of her before guilt crushes it as Sensei calls an end to the demonstration.

"He's my copilot," she says to the silent room as Herc startles beside her. Sensei's eyes close for a brief moment before he shakes his head.

"We will discuss it. My office; half an hour," Sensei says as she sucks in an annoyed breath, ready to respond and argue before he cuts her off with sharp motion of his hand.

"Half an hour," he responds, soft but firm, meeting her eyes. His face is hard and his body language doesn’t read as angry with her but as something far more. His eyes are easy when he meets hers and she lets them urge her into a tight, hesitant nod.

===

Freshly showered and changed, Mako stands at the threshold of Sensei's office. The chairs are in the same place as is his desk and the picture frames. The only thing out of place is the tea set he was once gifted and only then, she senses, because he is preparing tea for them both. He looks up and gifts her with a cautious and hopeful smile like she has not seen on his face in many years.

His office is the same and she is not.

There is something about that that pains her as she steps to him.

"Sensei," she murmurs, offering him a formal bow. He returns it carefully before they straighten.

"Mako," he responds gravely, a light smile pulling at his face despite the distance that has been put between them. Put between them by her, she reminds herself.

Regret is one of the myriad emotions thrumming through her before he distracts her.

"Let's sit," he says, carrying the set over to his desk and she loses herself to easy familiarity that she has been craving ever since she set foot in Japan a year and a half ago. Her hands are rough and cracked from her work and her muscles are far different than the ones gained through Ranger training and combat. She is different and Sensei is as well, she thinks, accepting one of the cups.

The steam is soft and fragrant and she is a teenager again, lip throbbing following a fight with Chuck as Sensei talked her through it. She wonders at the changes and she wonders at the pit of anger that takes all of her energy at times before she clears her throat. She probes for it, the constant companion, and instead finds a well of relief that she can’t remember. There is still a dead man at her shoulder, but what person in a Shatterdome doesn’t have that after all this time? 

"You have been sick," she says, looking him over as Sensei huffs out a laugh. It is wry rather than amused and something like the terror of a young girl flits through her.

"Somewhat, yes," he says baldly. He studies her for a moment before he sips at his tea, sighing softly. "You have as well."

"Why don't you want Herc to be my copilot?" she blurts out as he arches an eyebrow at her, amused but fond.

"And just when did I say that?" he asks as she colors, cheeks burning and anger tries to take over but she pushes it to the side, seeking that peace she had found moments earlier.

"I would like to discuss it."

Sensei sighs, placing his cup onto the desk delicately before he leans onto the desk, "My reservations are few, Mako, but I worry that this would be negative for you both."

"Familial pairings are best and Chuck and I were like family. That extends to Herc," she says stubbornly. Sensei sighs.

"I am aware," he says, "My worry is that your rage - rage that isn't entirely yours, I don't think - will consume you both."

Mako stares at him, hands tightening around her cup before she takes a deep, slow breath like the ones he had taught her to get her through a nightmare. It is a simple one-two-three count that soothes her aching memory and pained chest. She feels the warmth of the cup before she meets his eyes.

"He is the best candidate. For me. Regardless of anything else."

"I agree. But that does not mean I cannot worry. I’ll see you at the test tomorrow morning," he says, voice softening as she looks away. Mako hears the soft rushing sounds of the reflecting pool as Sensei removes his cufflinks, taking away the rank of the day before it’s simply Stacker, her Sensei, in front of her. She looks over to him, a smile tugging on his lips as he reaches over, gently passing a hand over her hair in familiar affection.

Huffing, she squeezes his hand lightly, leaning back to sip at her tea, savoring the warmth and the flavor. “Where’s Jake?” she asks, missing the final piece of her family. She can see signs of him in the quarters - his collection of data chips and his shoes shoved haphazardly beside Sensei’s. 

“On his way back,” Sensei says, avoiding the actual question as he sits across from her in his loosened uniform shirt. She knows that it’s rare for many to see him like this - if any of them ever do - and not for the first time, she’s aware of the love she has for him and her ragtag family.

“What does he think of your idea?” she asks neutrally. 

“He helped with the proposal,” Sensei says, curling his hands around his cup, watching her intently as she blinks in surprise. She had imagined his outrage and annoyance, not to hear about the help he had offered his father. Mako thinks of Jake and his easy laughter, teaching her how to play the latest gaming system as an excuse to practice her English and his Japanese. 

She swirls her tea in her cup, sipping at it one last time before she gently sets it on the desk with a muted clink. “Tell him to come find me when he gets here,” she murmurs, slipping past Herc without an apology, guilt and regret weighing her chest down even as she attempts to breathe through it.

She feels the residual heat of the tea in her hands and her chest slowly leaving and it reminds her of the entire weight of a Jaeger bearing down on her mind, burning circuitry paths into her neurons and her skin. She hears her name as she shoves her way into her quarters. They are sparse and the air is stale as she comes back to herself. Mako thinks of Chuck, of his anger and his death. His death has left an irreparable wound on her and she can feel nothing but anger at him and her own self for being reckless. She can feel the changes that are a pall over the Shatterdome but also herself. The connection between her and Herc in the Kwoon is pressing on her as well, all at once comforting and overwhelming. Memories buffet her like the winds of Alaska, tearing at her skin, and that fragile peace that she wants to destroy. 

Anger is familiar and the thought of letting go of Chuck is an absolute terror. 

She thinks of Knifehead rising through the water and the screaming, wailing pain and terror that was Chuck Hansen's last moments and it's only the repetitive thud that pulls her from the memory. She looks up to see Yancy Becket hovering outside of her quarters, bouncing a tennis ball from the ground, to the wall, and back to his hand. There are massive keloid scars down the right side of his neck and shoulder, gnarled and shiny. Her own drivesuit scars ache in response, like a sympathetic response as she clears her throat, offering a careful nod to Yancy. 

“Becket.”

“Mori,” he says, friendly in a way she could never fathom. He bounces the tennis ball towards her, smiling when she bounces it back, surprising her by the way he settles in to pass the ball back and forth a few times.

“Heard you’ve got some practice under your belt at taking things apart,” he says without any heat. She appreciates his directness as she coughs out a laugh, rusty though it is.

“Some,” she agrees, “More than you” she says, remembering the times when they used to argue over the Shatterdome intranet. She can remember the flush of pleasure at the fun of it as Yancy flashes a grin her way.

“Oh, I’m sure,” he responds, “Come down to the Shatterdome floor and show me.”

She stares at him blankly before he tosses the ball to her in a harder than usual throw, a clear challenge. Mako struggles with the feeling, the remembrance of connecting with her fellow Rangers and the way she keeps expecting to feel the now-familiar burst of anger. It comes and goes as easily as she tosses the tennis ball back to Yancy.

“You got a project or something? Maybe a new report to write?” he teases, watchful eyes gauging her reaction as she rolls her eyes. She feels more like herself than she has in years; she feels Chuck at her back, but it’s the Chuck she remembers rising to a challenge. 

“Oh, no, just trying to remember how reckless you were,” she returns as Yancy’s face brightens. It’s like remembering something that has been sitting at the tip of her tongue, a piece she didn’t know she had forgotten as she pulls her door shut, following Yancy to the Shatterdome floor. 

“If you ask Tendo, about the same. I like to think we matured at least a little,” Yancy says grandly as they approach the Jaeger. He hands her the equipment, a drill like one she was using to dismantle the Shatterdomes less than a week ago. It’s like ghosting and deja vu all at once, similar and different in the worst sort of way. She’s shocked out of it by Yancy throwing his tennis ball over to Raleigh, nailing him in the arm.

“Quick slacking, kid!” he calls out as Mako rolls her eyes. Chuck shadows her even now; she thinks she’ll probably never lose him and the thought is a comfort. She works with the Beckets to tinker on the Lady, enjoying the banter that floats around her and distracts her from the memory of cold and empty quarters. She aches for the comfort of the Drift she once had, that knowledge of someone else’s mind and heart. 

She remembers being in the Shatterdome with the Beckets and Chuck, learning how to navigate the chore chart and the barter system. She remembers the first time Raleigh crossed the wrong wires, earning himself a stripe of blisters along the back of his hand. She remembers fighting with Yancy over the music playing and Chuck grinning as he changed the song no matter what they agreed on. 

She lets nostalgia carry her along until it gets to be too much; it eats at her reserves, leaving her to carefully put the drill down, like feedback in the cradle. She can tell when the Beckets notice and she lets them guide her off of the floor, feeling the weight of change pressing in on either side of her like the brothers.

Crawling into the bunk of her own quarters, she thinks about Chuck and the best memories. She thinks about their first meeting and the satisfying crash of her fist into his nose. Mako hugs her pillow hard as she thinks about the look of surprise on his face anytime she managed to sweep his feet out from under him. The sense of drifting with a dead man is slowly eroding, but in it’s place is the newfound sense of grief that feels like a new drivesuit - still uncomfortable but right in a lot of ways. 

Mako lets herself doze on and off, worrying at the empty spaces left by Chuck (once filled with his anger, now seemingly waiting to be filled with something else). The day eats away at her, leaving her to tear at the skin of her cuticles as she tries to sleep, head and hands aching as she finally drops off to a hard sleep.

She wakes a few hours later, the soft hum of a Shatterdome in the middle of the night suddenly too quiet without others breathing nearby. She sits and reads the news on her pad before she finds herself drifting aimlessly through the halls when she ends up running into the Weis, their concern almost too much as they offer up their own brand of easy affection (close to ignoring Mako but remaining open to affection that she desperately craves). She sits with them in the lounge while they yell at each other over videogames. Mako finds herself unable to put her restless grief into words, but the Weis don’t let it stop them from including her anyways. She wanders through her memories of the Shatterdomes - before and after their dismantling. 

Just as she’s close to slipping off to sleep crammed between warm bodies, she feels one of the Weis shifting.

Cheung watches her carefully, kneeling as she focuses on him.

"C'mon," he says, pulling her to her feet, "back to our quarters, I think," he says as Jin throws an arm around her shoulder, squeezing her tightly. It is the same warmth as it always was and the loneliness that has been her constant companion in the riptide of Chuck's death begins to ebb slowly but surely with Hu's chatter and Jin's arm anchoring her to the present. 

"Five years is a long time," Cheung says finally, handing her a blanket once they get settled back in the cramped, comfortable quarters. They are the quarters of a trio who have made this their home beyond any other. Posters and photos cover one wall and blueprints cover another. The back of the door holds a calendar, painstakingly labeled with the timeline and she sees days crossed off, noting Jin's careful handwriting and Cheung's scrawl.

Comfort settles over her as easily as the blanket before she looks Cheung in the eye.

"Long enough," she says speaking for the first time. Her voice cracks in the middle.

"Long enough for what?" Jin asks, pulling her close. He's always been the most demonstrative of their affection. It reminds her of Jake and the easy affection and comfort that she’s missed since Chuck’s death.She revels in it even as part of her wants to go back to her cold quarters. It is easier, she thinks, to let anger push everything else away. Easier but worse. She picks at some of the threads in the blanket before she shrugs carefully.

"Long enough to not go insane," she says as Hu hisses quietly. He curls around her protectively and Mako, for all that she wants to hold Chuck's voice and memory closer, contents herself with pressing between he and Jin with Chuck's memory all around her.

She remembers first assignments and first drops to shadow Crimson Typhoon, the Weis trading barbs back and forth and their casual rough-housing that easily drew Chuck in. They showed her and Chuck how to adjust to life in a Shatterdome and with them, she finally feels as if she's supposed to be here, in this Shatterdome.

===

Mako spends the night curled between Jin and Hu, their snores ruffling the hair that falls across her forehead. Her body and mind have always been unable to realize that her copilot is gone. The Drift reaches out, she knows, and she remembers training runs in the simulator with Cheung, Jin, and Hu. She remembers Chuck and Jin being compatible enough to try a few Drifts but the truest Drift had been between she and Chuck. Their Drift had taken the rough edges both of them brought and smoothed them out, lacing together like it was always meant to be.

Here and now, curled between Jin and Hu with Cheung's arm within reach from his pallet on the floor (she remembers the three of them wanting to stay close, offering what comfort they were able to), she lets her mind content itself with this false security. They were not her copilots but she thinks that they could have been once upon a time.

Mako brushes a light, affectionate hand over both Jin and Hu's heads, squirming away from them and out of the bed. She steps over Cheung, watching his sleepy blink as he registers her leaving. She offers him a slight smile, wiggling her fingers as he smiles, shoving his face into his pillow before he falls back asleep just as she shuts the door.

Her boots slide on easily, the laces tucked into the boots as she slowly makes her way to the mess hall. She is one of the first ones up, she notices, exchanging an easy nod with the mess hall workers, accepting a steaming cup of tea and a few biscuits, wrapped in napkins to take with her. Mako lets her feet take her to a familiar overhang.

Back in the academy, she remembers, she and Chuck used to sit on one of the observation bays, watching senior students (by all of three weeks) learn how to scale the great, hulking beasts. When she had come to live with Sensei and Jake, she hadn’t understood how he’d been able to stay separate from the Jaegers. She can remember being immediately fascinated in a way that Jake wasn’t. Now, older and preparing to get back into a Jaeger with someone other than Chuck, she thinks she can understand. She finds that her habit of wandering has brought her back to the Jaeger that had always been theirs.

She stands there, watching Striker across the bay, sparks falling from his arms, one a total replacement and the other obviously upgraded. She sits on the metal grating, idly picking at her food, steam curling from the food and the tea. Mako reaches for the spaces left for her own anger and Chuck's and it is only an exercise in visualization but she wonders if there are pock marks on her soul. She thinks about working with the Beckets and spending the night with the Weis and the soothing hangover that's been left behind; something is settling inside her and she is unsure if it is a good thing or not.

Footsteps on the grating draw her from her thoughts as she looks up at Herc, shifting in a way that reminds her viscerally of Chuck.

"Morning," he says softly, lowering himself to sit beside her with a stifled groan. He drapes his legs over the edge of the observation deck, leaning onto the railing in front of him.

"Good morning," she returns, sitting in silence with him. The easy silence between them is something even more tentative than the meeting only two days before. Mako scowls to herself, sipping at her tea as she breaks the biscuit in half, offering it to Herc. He blinks and smiles at her, a sweet smile that is easier than any she had ever seen from Chuck. He accepts it with a murmured thanks and takes a bite, humming quietly.

"What's it feel like? Being back here, I mean," Herc asks, watching her.

"Terrifying. Breathtaking," she says with a soft laugh, "I missed my Jaeger."

Herc gives her a bitter, easy smile and she remembers abruptly that he's been without his own Jaeger for longer than she's been without hers. He ducks his head, looking out to Striker Tachyon, smiling fondly, like the machine is a lost member of his family.

"I took good care of him, no worries," he says as she blinks at him. She's seen the reports and knows that the restoration project was headed by Tendo but knowing that Herc has worked on her Jaeger - hers and Chuck's Jaeger - when he was missing his son just as much as she was is somehow humbling. Mako clears her throat, finishing her tea as they watch the breastplate being lifted off, Striker's core bathing them both in orange light like the rising sun.

"I can tell," she says finally, touching his arm before she eagerly drinks it every view of Striker's heart she can.

"When was the last time you saw his heart?"

"I never stopped," she says, meeting Herc's eyes.

===

 

She sits in one of the empty bays, between Cherno and Crimson, scrolling through news feeds while she lets the sounds of the Shatterdome wash over her. There is a countdown just above them all and it is a weigh settling around her neck.

Mako has her own countdown; the countdown until her test drift with Herc is in a little less than two hours and her stomach is churning from nerves and excitement. She clicks on an article, reading about the Wall and Lars Gottlieb and she curls her lip in disgust.

"I make that face all the time too," Alison says, watching her as Mako looks up. Her hair is shoved under an old baseball cap, strands escaping. Her jaw is tense and Mako notices that her hands are clenched in the fabric of her coveralls before she sits on the floor across from Mako.

"The Wall," Mako explains briefly as Alison makes a rough, rude noise in response. It makes Mako smile to herself as Alison clears her throat.

"Look, Tendo said to not say anything. But I need to say this before you get back into that Jaeger," Alison says, clearly steeling herself. Mako lets the tablet go dark as Alison picks at the threads her of Lady Danger patch. Mako remembers all the Jaegers that Alison has worked on and how many friends she too has lost and guilt surges inside her like waves battering a seawall.

"I am so angry with you," Alison says finally. She stares at the patch on her knee, the pin-up sitting on the ordinance with a cheeky smile, "Not just because the two of you were reckless but because you didn't stay."

"I couldn't," Mako says helplessly as Alison makes the same 'mmph' noise again in the back of her throat, "It was like I was missing a limb. Like I was off-balance. And that hasn't stopped since."

"I understand that. But we would have helped you through it."

"How do you help someone who lost a part of themselves, Alison?" says Mako desperately.

"I don't know!" Alison exclaims sharply, throwing her hands up, "How about we ask the Marshall, eh? Or, better yet, Herc Hansen. You left us to wonder what was happening to you. Five years, Mako. And you never once let us know you were okay."

"Because I wasn't!" Mako explodes, voice rising above the work and music and shouts. She pushes her hair back from her face, black strands catching on her callouses, "I wasn't okay. I was alive and that was it, Ali."

"I just. You left. You barely left any notes and you just left," Alison says as Mako sighs, tears burning the back of her eyelids when a familiar and well-loved anger pushes to the front. Anger replaces her guilt and she stares at Alison for a long moment.

"A part of me is gone. Damaged beyond repair. I am less whole and the reason I left for five years and four months was so I could manage to stay sane. Do you know what happens to a partner who is left behind following a traumatic Drift? Their brains change. Because there are portions of the brain that rewrite themselves to work around it. I could not have stayed," Mako says, anger flaring again before ebbing, leaving her exhausted as she stands, "I did what was best for me, Alison."

"I understand that, Mako," Alison says after silence. Sasha's laugh echoes across the Shatterdome floor and Mako suddenly wishes to be in their bay, laughing with her. Alison stands, meeting Mako's eyes, "It doesn’t excuse the no contact but I understand."

Mako blinks, watching Alison's soft, tentative smile and Mako can feel her throat tightening.

"Don't think this gets you out of talking about it, hmm?" Alison says, pulling Mako into a hug. Mako is barely taller than Alison, still needing to bend just slightly to press her face into Alison's neck. She shudders hard, just once and involuntarily, hanging onto Alison. Alison squeezes her and presses an easy kiss to Mako's forehead.

"We'll talk. After," Mako promises. Alison gives her a sweet, sad smile before they stride off together, stilted conversation slowly breaking into easy laughter.

The test is an hour and a half away.

===

Mako hasn’t given much thought to what a test would involve this time. Her heart stutters when she sees the Drivesuits. They are almost the same as they were when she was younger, save for the color; they are a matte black now, a sheen under the lights as she lets them bolt her into it. Her breathing quickens as panic rushes through her - putting a new suit on feels like forgetting Chuck. She searches frantically for the once familiar anger, like looking for lost glasses; it is searching for clarity amidst murky water.

She hears the drone of the drills around her before she realizes that it’s her own ears ringing. The techs look to her with sympathy - not pity. Never pity, she thinks, swallowing with a click. One of the techs hands her a helmet, waiting for her to take it.

“Thank you,” she whispers, meeting their eyes as she strides out into the hallway. People are lined up, watching her solemnly and her heart pounds painfully in her ears. She thinks of the first and last time she strolled through this hallway in a Drivesuit; Chuck beside her both times, excitement written on his face. She steps into the elevator to take her to the Conn Pod, breath coming harshly as she, alone for once, drops to the floor. She kneels and holds her head between her hands, whispering to anyone who’s listening. She thinks of Jake talking her through a panic attack, telling her how Tamsin would talk him down. 

Mako imagines his voice in her ear, talking her through this one in a way that she hasn’t had in years. She stands, hands shaking but her breathing steadying as the elevator slows to a stop. The doors slide open to an empty corridor as she steps into the Conn Pod. Her breath catches in a gasp, this time of wonder. It doesn’t look the same (something she is grateful for), but she can see the repairs that were made; indisputable proof that someone was ripped from this Jaeger. She likes the open confrontation it implies as she steps to the right side, feeling the ache flare in sense memory. It feels like Chuck for a moment, Ghosting again like before. Nausea rocks her stomach as she hears footsteps. 

Walking into the Conn Pod like he’s walking into a haunted house (and perhaps he is, she thinks), Herc Hansen stands before her, calm body language but she can see the concealed worry in his eyes. 

“You look good,” she says as he smiles, relaxing.

“You too,” he murmurs, reaching out to touch the feedback cradle reverently. They are, perhaps, the most damaged members of the PPDC and Mako feels something like kinship with Herc Hansen, not for the first time.

“I’ll take the left,” he says firmly, taking the 02 cradle as she stares at him. She can feel the Ghost of Chuck roaring around her, but she nods silently. Mako slides her own helmet on, taking a deep breath as it settles into place, the click of her comms locking her into LOCCENT where Sensei and Tendo wait. 

“You ready?” Herc asks as Mako lets out a forceful snort.

“Not a bit,” she says as Herc huffs in amusement. He shakes his shoulders, rotating them one at a time before meeting her eyes. 

“Yeah, me either,” he says wryly.

“Alright, alright, alright. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness this Drift. If there are any here today who oppose this, kindly removed yourselves from my LOCCENT. Mori, Hansen, are you ready?”

“Ready,” Herc says, looking over to meet her eyes, his own have gone calm and resolute in the face of their first Drift. She feels the edges of panic creeping across her skin but she pushes them away firmly.

“Ready,” she calls out, proud of how her voice doesn’t shake. She centers herself with a few quick breaths that Sensei had taught her to ground herself. She thinks of hanbo staves and the sense of rightness from sparring with Herc and she lets herself hope for the first time since she heard of a Kaiju code-named Knifehead.

“Initiating Drift,” Tendo says, counting down through the buzz in Mako’s ears. She has a last moment to share a glance with Herc before the Drift floods through them both.

She sees Herc’s memories, sees herself in the blue tones of the Drift. Sees herself launch a small body at Chuck; sees Herc do the same to Scott. Anger, so much anger that she doesn’t recognize; anger at being unable to do more, anger at the loss of his son. Knifehead blips past, pushing past them like an apparition. She matches it with her own helpless anger, she sees herself running away from a kaiju on the streets of Sydney unlike the streets of Tokyo. She wonders if he’s feeling the terror of a small girl running with only one shoe as she feels his horror. She feels the moment of having of make a choice, screaming at a superior officer, watching an impossibly small Chuck screaming for his mother. She thinks of her own self weeping for her family in the wake of Tokyo.

Their Drift feels like static on old TVs and she feels the RABIT when they start chasing it. Herc is standing beside her, younger than she’s ever known him. Panic is thick in the air like the dust floating around them, his ginger hair shining in the bright Sydney sunshine. She hears the alarms distantly sounding, Tendo’s voice trying to call them back. 

“Herc?” she says, moving to stand in front of him in the Drift. It is unlike any other Drift she has experienced, but she’s heard of chasing the RABIT. She’s heard that it means they have a weak Drift and she scoffs at that idea. She tries to remember how to work through it as Herc runs for a helicopter, murmuring a prayer that he never really believed but Angela did. She knows this just as she knows that when Chuck was nervous, he would whisper the same thing. She watches an explosion rock the distance, knowing that Chuck is safe but Angela will never know. She can feel the strength of their Drift as she mutters to herself, forcefully thinking of Chuck, letting memories of him wash over her.

Mako thinks of the injured way Chuck held himself for so long, like he was afraid that she would begrudge him his anger and sadness over his mother. She thinks of his curiosity for every part of a Jaeger, of the way he taught her how to code in exchange for her teaching him how to block like Sensei showed her. She thinks of their first Drift; jubilant and exciting, terrifying and hopeful, and she can feel when the alarms stop sounding and Herc comes back to her. She thinks of the pride they had shared over their high compatibility scores, highest in the Academy. There’s a moment where the Drift pauses, like it’s thinking over this pairing and she’s suddenly in Herc’s memories of Chuck. He remembers a friendly, yet shy child; someone who idolized his Uncle and loved his mother. They share memories of his mischievous nature and before she can pinpoint when it happens, they are in sync, sharing themselves with the other rather than sharing Chuck.

“Neural handshake holding strong,” Tendo says shakily. 

“Right hemisphere calibrated,” Mako calls out hoarsely.

“Left hemisphere calibrated,” Herc says, hands shaking as Tendo shuts the Drift down. Mako slides from the feedback cradle, ripping her helmet off to stare at Herc as he avoids her gaze totally.

“Are we good?” Mako asks, bravado that isn’t hers and isn’t Chuck’s for once; she idly notes that it seems to be wholly Herc’s.

“We’ll Drift just fine,” he says, not meeting her eyes. She can feel that raw spot in the back of her mind, missing Chuck like a lost tooth; it feels like someone has stuffed cotton there, staunching the bleeding for now. 

“That,” she says sharply, “is not what I asked.”

“We’re good, Mako,” Herc says finally, striding out of the Conn Pod.

===

She finds him, hours later, sitting on the overlook of the Shatterdome, spray soaking into his clothes and settling into the lines of his face. It’s a moment of his younger self superimposed over the current version. She sits beside him, a silence that is peaceful and easy as she clears her throat. 

It’s like waking up from a long illness, like when she got pneumonia after she first came to live with Sensei and Jake. She remembers being so sick and so tired and the rattle in her chest that left her scared without a way to express herself. Mako remembers the days and weeks after she finally started to improve; the same feeling of clarity and peace is what she feels now, sitting beside Herc.

“He never hated you,” she says. It isn’t what she meant to say but she knows it to be true for what it is. Her instincts are wholly her own since the test Drift and if she were still in the Academy, she knows that there would be a paper in this somewhere. 

“Didn’t like me much,” Herc says, self-deprecating as always. She scoffs, swatting him with a familiarity that’s brand new but the same all at once. 

“He didn’t know what to do with all that anger. He was sad and scared and all of you were emotionally repressed,” she says, aiming for levity and casual all at the same time as Herc chokes out a startled laugh. It’s rusty but she can hear the ways he sounds like Chuck. 

“Thanks for that. This meant to be a pep talk?” Herc asks, canting his eyes over to her as she pushes her hair back from her face. Their arms are brushing and she lets herself press against him lightly, seeking the comfort. 

“I think we need to settle our feelings about Chuck before we get back into a Drift,” she says as he sighs. She feels the hesitation when his arm tenses before he gently lays it over her shoulders. It’s intimate and all the more shocking for it. Mako has become used to Herc being closed off, the man who stood off to the side even before the loss of his Jaeger. 

“Was your Drift ever like that? Chasing RABITS?”

“No. Our scores were the highest in the Academy but when we tried Drifting with others, we created RABITS,” she says, sliding her arm around his waist in return. She knows, logically, that she can’t truly be Ghosting with Herc after a test Drift but the comfort it affords her is indescribable. 

“You both had a large trauma at the same age.” 

“Like anyone was without trauma,” Mako says scornfully. 

“It’s not the same,” Herc says and Mako sighs, letting herself relax. Herc squeezes her shoulder, pointing over the bay to the Sikorskys coming in, an entire city and world preparing for a battle that should make Mako more nervous. 

Instead, she feels a sense of purpose that stutters into something like excitement. 

“It’s not the same,” she repeats, shifting away enough to peer up at him, “but your trauma matches mine, so we’ll Drift just fine.”

Herc blinks at her, a smile slowly breaking onto his face, crinkling the crow’s feet at his eyes as he huffs at her, shoving her shoulder easily. 

“Don’t be an arse, Mori.”

===  
_One month, Post-Breach_

The Shatterdomes don’t change. 

Whether it is late at night or early in the morning, Shatterdomes are all the same. Mako is the first one out of the hospital wing. She parks herself inside Herc’s room for half of the morning, before spending the latter half of the day with Sensei. Herc still hasn’t woken up from the oxygen deprivation as she sent him to the surface. 

Nearby, the Beckets are chatting happily, ready to be released and Mako lets them press a grateful kiss to her temples as a thanks for Striker’s assistance in the Hong Kong harbor. It wasn’t in time to save the Kaidanovskies and the guilt of that hangs heavily around her neck as she lets the Beckets hug her. Mako wanders the Shatterdome, feeling like a ghost even as she sits with Herc’s sleeping body, holding his hand for the connection.

She finds herself thinking of Chuck; the way he would always look toward his Dad, wanting the relationship that she had with Sensei in a way. Mako watches the Beckets leave as she makes another lap, getting used to the newfound silence that was once taken up by Chuck’s yelling. The space left behind isn’t anymore full or empty, but she’s made her peace with it.

She made her peace in another dimension, climbing into an escape pod.

===  
_Two Months, Post-Breach_

Sensei’s recovery has been slow going. Dr. Lightcap comes through, applying aggressive treatment after aggressive treatment; determination shining through her bitten nails and enough coffee to put Tendo to shame. Mako watches Sensei drift in and out of good and bad moods as his hair falls out and comes back in only to fall back out. He looks younger without a mustache and Jake teases him the whole time. 

It takes the better part of a month and a half before he’s awake for long stretches of time. She can’t bring herself to visit with him when he’s awake, even as she aches to be with her family. She feels responsible, in some way; that if, maybe, she had done her job as a Ranger better, then the only casualty would have been herself. 

The part of her that is still, and will always be, Chuck scoffs at that. He would have (rightfully) labeled it as dramatic. Mako finds her voice failing more often than not as she wanders the Shatterdome floor, sitting in an empty bay where a Russian monument once stood. She thinks about everything lost and everything else left behind. She leaves a few folded cranes, made out of the last pieces of origami paper she had once traded for with Sasha. She loses herself in the creases, smiling to herself as she places them beside the other trinkets that have been left in tribute. 

Her own injuries still ache, though she doesn’t know if they’re real or imagined. Sometimes, when she gets lost in her thoughts, she breathes in the smell of smoking Kaiju Blue and she has trouble remembering if she’s a child or an adult again.

The therapists say that will get better.

It seems a small price to pay, however, as they lay a wreath into the harbor for the Kaidanovskies. Mako stays with Herc, unable to take the accolades for a third time in her life, simply for surviving. 

===  
_Three Months, Post-Breach_

Herc still sleeps, three months later.

In that time, Mako has taken the brunt of the media coverage with the Beckets and with Jake. The others, still recovering, have given limited statements. Mako has found herself lost for words until Yancy quietly rests his hand on her shoulder, bracketing Jake doing the same as Raleigh starts telling an over-dramatic story about the Kaidanovskies as she collects herself. 

She talks without her co-pilot, choking past the lump in her throat, knowing that it helps to keep the Shatterdome running. She takes her time because there are others who need it more for recovery.

It’s time they’ve finally had; Cheung missing an eye after the double event, already making plans to make an eyepatch out of the scrap that’s been recovered and cleared from Crimson Typhoon. Hu has problems with his memory, already using a tablet to make notes as he relearns how to speak. The Drivesuit scars that they all shared are now ingrained in them, but the other tolls are still being evaluated. Jin comes out of it last, rehab and physical therapy teaching him how to walk again. 

The Weis flit in and out of the hospital wing, bright and cheery and they bring her out of her shell. She lets them drag her to the mess hall where she meets Hermann’s wife, a model taller than both Mako and Hermann with a round beach ball of a belly as she beams at the table. Vanessa Gottlieb is the exact kind of person that Chuck would have liked, Mako thinks; she laughs at the worst jokes and tells better ones, and she curses worse than some of the other techs. Hermann smiles at her, besotted and Mako lets something like peace wind through her as she makes her way back to the hospital wing.

“You gotta go see him at some point, you know.” 

The voice is loud in the hallway, neutral but she knows that if she looks, the expression will be one of reserved judgement. She turns, wrapping the cardigan around her tight; it’s one from her footlocker, gently washed and kept by Sensei and she pulls at one of the threads that make up the embroidered leaves before she finally meets Jake’s eyes. 

“I don’t know if I’m ready,” she says. Jake crosses his arms, leaning his shoulder into the Shatterdome wall. He looks better than the last time she had seen him, freshly out of the isolation ward. She’s been in to see Sensei for a few brief times; a combination of guilt that has weighed her down since the harbor and the times when nobody has been allowed in following a treatment.

(“Honestly,” Dr. Lightcap says, a pencil hanging out of a haphazard twist of hair. They’re all on their last legs, waiting to see if the Marshall will pull through, “we’re kind of reinventing the wheel here. Radiation therapy for radiation poisoning is a ridiculous idea, but it’s what we’ve got left. He’s still got some bleeds that we’re working on, but he’s improving.”

“What do you need?” Mako asks, voice rough and eyes bleary as Jake sleeps, curled in the chair beside her.

“Time. Get better first and then help him get better,” Dr. Lightcap says, smiling as she squeezes Mako’s hand, passing a hand over Jake’s shoulder before she walks off.)

“Mako,” Jake says sternly, “he’s been waiting,” he says. Mako turns, unable to compose herself as she thinks to the years between them. She clears her throat, walking over to stand in front of him.

“It’s not like I haven’t visited when I’ve been allowed,” she says.

“Splitting your days with him while he’s sleeping doesn’t count,” Jake says reproachfully. There’s a few years difference between their ages but sometimes it seems as though it’s an eternity. Mako sighs, thinking to the escape pod that had been found after hers and after the airlift. She thinks of Sensei, still in isolation because the scientists aren’t sure what all of the radiation did to him after Jake had to evacuate the Jaeger. 

“How do I tell him that we weren’t fast enough?” she asks, quietly thinking of Sasha and Aleksis; she thinks of the Wei’s injuries and that his closest friend has yet to wake up. Sometimes Mako wonders if Herc will ever wake up.

Jake’s face softens and he wraps an arm around her. It’s the first chance they’ve had to be siblings rather than Rangers since he landed in Hong Kong and her breath shudders out of her. Mako crumples into Jake, hanging on as he murmurs to her soothingly. They stand like that until the hallway begins to become more active. Jake squeezes her tight and starts pulling her with him. 

“You tell him you did your best,” Jake says, pausing at the door of the isolation room where Sensei is. Jake clears his throat and smiles weakly at her, “and he’ll tell you that he knew that already.”

Stepping through the door, feeling the blast of the air to make sure they don’t bring more germs inside, Mako can’t help but to hold her breath until it passes.. She’d had to go through her own quarantine like the rest of the pilots. Mako thinks of the panic that had taken over the Shatterdome as the Sikorsky went out for one more pass, intending to find a body for a funeral and instead finding a survivor. 

It had been touch and go and Sensei had been isolated three times as long as the other pilots after the closing of the Breach. The larger dose of radiation and the sheer amount of injuries involved had left him thin and the last she had seen him (two weeks ago, while he slept and she could stand to watch him), without hair. Sensei looks up at the door opening and she looks at him now, hair finally starting to come back in and she wonders at the smile that warms his face. 

Jake squeezes her hand as she presses her other hand against the glass. Sensei laughs, the sound happy and tired over the intercom as he matches her.

She isn’t sure how long they stand there, these two members of her family, but she talks until she’s hoarse, taking comfort in the easy way Sensei laughs now that the weight of the Breach is off of his shoulders. 

Maybe, she thinks, it’s off of hers too.

Mako spends the day there and into the night before Sensei becomes over-tired. He drifts off mid-sentence and Mako lets Jake lead her out. She feels less uneasy than she did before, but she can’t help but wish that this hadn’t happened at all to Sensei. 

Jake eyes her, as though he can sense when she’s sliding into blaming herself again. She knows, if she told him that, he would claim it’s his big brother sense. It would make her laugh and for a moment, Mako wishes that she were that person still. She hopes that maybe she can get back to that someday and it will be enough just to be reminded of her life before Chuck.

“You know what this needs?” Jake asks, dragging her after him, instead of letting her drift back to the hospital wing where Herc stays resolutely in a coma.

“Alcohol?”

“Yeah, that’s a terrible idea. All that’s left is that paint thinner the Russians make. I like us both way too much to do that,” Jake says as she laughs. The sound is rusty and choked off, like it has to force its way past. He doesn’t comment as she follows him. 

“Jake, why are we going to the kitchens?”

“Because food makes everything better, obviously,” he scoffs. She watches as he raids the freezer, coming up with a tub of ice cream. Mako sits down, easing into it as she feels the itch of her drivesuit scars against her shirt. They get irritated more easily as they are newer and sometimes Mako finds herself standing in the spray of her shower, wishing she had never earned them or the other ones. 

“So you say,” Mako says fondly, watching Jake add scoop after scoop into a bowl. He layers on chocolate sauce, tongue poking out from between his teeth. She feels a surge of overwhelming fondness for him; the same she had felt when she first came to London, a stop-over between Shatterdomes. She remembers the way he had casually shared everything with her, including his father. 

“When have I ever lead you wrong?” Jake asks, shoving ice cream back into the freezer. He turns to face her, pointing sternly, “And _don’t_ say the prank war with Tamsin.”

Mako laughs at this, a great whooping sound that echoes through the empty kitchen as she thinks back to Tamsin smugly looking down at them, as one of their own pranks backfired. Jake looks smug in the same way and Mako reaches over, squeezing his arm as he smacks a kiss against her temple. He walks away and comes back with an industrial size jar of sprinkles, grinning in delight as he jams his hand in.

“I don’t like those and you know it,” Mako says finally as Jake pauses, hand stuck in the opening of the jar. He blinks and looks to his hand before looking back at her. She grabs one of the spoons, taking a big mouthful of the ice cream. She hums in contentment as Jake finally shrugs.

“More for me then,” he says, tilting his head back and dumping a handful of sprinkles straight into his mouth. She makes a face.

“You are still disgusting,” she says, licking chocolate sauce from the side of her thumb as Jake snorts. He sprays sprinkles across the table as she glares at him and flicks a few of them back at him, grimacing. It feels like being home for the first time in years as he beams at her with multicolored sprinkles stuck to his teeth.

“Disgustingly adorable, maybe,” he says as he grabs his own spoon.

===  
_Four Months, Post-Breach_

“You should talk to him,” Sensei says, after they’ve moved him from the isolation ward into the room where Herc is. Mako looks over, watching Tendo laugh and tease Raleigh as they help get Herc bathed and shaved. It’s something they’ve done for each other, unwilling to let anyone else help their fellow Rangers. Raleigh’s voice is rougher than it used to be, something that they’ve been unable to fix. Raleigh doesn’t bother himself with it. Yancy, however, seems more at peace than she’s ever known him. Yancy keeps them on task as the Shatterdome bustles around outside.

The Shatterdome is, and always will be, a hub of activity; especially now that the survivors of the Breach have enough public sway to get funding for at least another year of research. 

Mako knows that she’s done plenty with her own fame - including helping to close the Breach - but it’s nice to know that she helped to secure jobs for those who she’s cared for most at the Shatterdome. The techs and teams who lost their Jaegers didn’t lose their benefits and Mako can content herself with a job well done on that one. 

“To who?” she asks, pressing her knuckles into Sensei’s calf, ignoring his gasp and cursing as she presses into the pressure points like she was taught. During the isolation and the treatments, he lost muscle tone and Mako is determined to fix it. 

“To Herc,” Sensei says, breathless. She helps him flex his ankles (surprisingly thin now, perhaps from being off of them for so long, she thinks) and doesn’t respond for a long moment. The chatter from the other side of the room is welcoming and friendly and it feels like being back at the Academy for a moment. 

“Lightcap says he’s aware of us. Responding to stimuli,” Mako says, letting him rest as she sits beside him. 

“Exactly. Keep talking to him,” Sensei says, reaching up to touch her hair. It’s longer than it’s been since before she came to live with him. She leans into his hand, taking comfort as he pulls her into a hug. This too is different; Sensei can be affectionate without anyone looking twice. There are no worries of favoritism. 

Mako leans against him for a moment before she pinches his arm lightly, grinning as she stands. “That’s not going to get you out of PT, you know,” she says, pulling her cardigan off and tossing it on a nearby chair, going to work on his other leg. 

Sensei grumbles good-naturedly as she starts working again. 

===  
_Five Months, Post-Breach_

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Jake asks, arm thrown around Raleigh’s shoulders casually. Raleigh is beaming, which is his standard expression these days, Mako thinks. She snorts as Yancy rolls his eyes, shaking his head and holding the door open.

“Even if she’s not, I am,” he says, “Now, get in before Raleigh chickens out,” Yancy says, smirking. Raleigh scowls, shoving at him as they all step inside the parlor. 

“I wouldn’t chicken out,” Raleigh rasps, making Jake laugh as they tumble over one another. Mako hangs back, looking at the traditional art on the walls that hangs beside flash sheets of tattoo designs. She thinks back to all the plans that she and Chuck had made once, in a different life, and she sighs. 

It had been Jin who had told them about this place, he and his brothers coming back with Crimson Typhoon’s logo etched over their hearts, beaming with pride and excitement. Mako looks to Yancy as Jake and Raleigh introduce themselves easily.

“You’re not going to chicken out,” Yancy says, confident as she snorts, digging her finger into his ribs just to hear him hiss and jump away from her.

“Of course not,” she says, scoffing.

Later, with the hum of the tattoo machine taking over the quiet murmurs of Yancy, Raleigh, and Jake, she lets herself drift off in the sensation. She doesn’t mention the tears that slip down her cheeks as she breathes through the pain. It aches through her, like five years away from home and five months without her co-pilot waking up. Mako takes the tissue that Jake presses into her hand when she opens her eyes, mopping her face. 

It’s late into the night when they leave, collarbone bandaged lightly. They pick up noodles from one of the stands still open and trek back to the Shatterdome. Mako’s chest aches but she feels lighter than she has in years.

“How long have you had those schematics?” Jake asks as they sit between Herc and Stacker’s beds. Mako looks down at the transparent bandage, able to read the schematic notations even upside down. 

“Always. Well, since I got paired with Chuck,” she says, missing the hurt that usually runs through her. She lets Raleigh have the last of her noodles as she looks over to Herc, breathing steadily as she turns back to them and clears her throat, “we worked on the schematics together, you know?”

“Who had the idea for anchor clips in the feet?” Yancy asks, tossing his napkin into the trash from his chair. It bounces off of the rim as Mako snickers. She yawns, thinking back to being a teenager, excitedly brainstorming ideas with Chuck that were soon tempered by the older Rangers; usually Tamsin or Sensei.

“That was me. Chuck telegraphed his moves, so me and Tamsin thought of it after watching the Gage twins,” she says, reaching over to squeeze Herc’s hand, thinking of the way he had kept his distance even as Chuck yearned for him to come over and offer his own ideas. 

“We ended up borrowing them for the Lady,” Raleigh says, smiling fondly as he watches her holding onto Herc’s hand. She thinks of Chuck and of the betrayal he’d struggled with after his Uncle Scott had left the program. Mako thinks of Herc stoically bearing the spectre of his brother and just what he was capable of for years longer than she had dealt with losing Chuck. Mako remembers holding onto Herc after their first Drift, each of them clinging to one another for different reasons. 

“I remember,” Mako says, smiling as she squeezes Herc’s hand, listening to the conversation around her as Jake hooks his ankle around hers. She’s so busy listening to her friends that she almost misses the twitch of the fingers she’s holding.

Gasping, Mako stares down at Herc’s sleeping form, vaguely aware of the sudden silence behind her. She squeezes her hand again and waits to see if the twitch was nothing or a herald of something more. 

“Keep talking,” Mako says, scooting closer, watching Herc avidly. The sense-memory she carries of Chuck seems expectant as Yancy starts talking about his and Raleigh’s first deployment. The sound fades into background noise as Mako squeezes Herc’s hand again, waiting and hoping for something more. She hears Sensei join in, woken up by the rapid beeping of Herc’s monitor, the one that’s been tracking his brain waves in the last months. 

“C’mon, you asshole,” Jake mutters from her shoulder, making Yancy snort in surprise. Mako laughs, the sound wet as she registers that she’s started to cry again as Herc squeezes her hand again, firm this time. She watches his chest, seeing the pattern of breathing become less and less regular, the monitor beside her beeping for a nurse as Herc’s face crinkles, his eyes prying open.

“Welcome back,” Mako says, through tears and a grin as Herc sighs, croaking her name in relief. She wipes at her face, letting the others greet him as she holds onto his hand.

===  
_Six Months, Post-Breach_

“Last set,” Sensei says, grinning at Herc as they pass the weight ball back and forth. Herc grimaces and Mako snorts as he curses his best friend. Recovery is slow-going, but Mako watches the hospital wing slowly empty day by day.

Herc and Sensei are the last two to leave, provided they can finish the last set. 

It doesn’t mean that they’re done with physical therapy or rehab but it means that they can move back into their own quarters.

Mako grins when Herc and Sensei shout in triumph, high-fiving, and it’s a glimpse into what it was like when they were younger. She shakes her head, sharing a fond eye-roll with Dr. Lightcap at their antics. Mako helps them clean up, leaving Dr. Lightcap to discharge them with a flourish.

“What are you going to do with your freedom now?” Mako asks Herc as she walks between them slowly. Recovery will take months, maybe even years, but for now, she can walk with them out into the Hong Kong sunshine, finally at peace.

“I’m going to get a steak as large as my head,” Herc says wistfully, making Sensei snort. Mako watches him tilt his head back into the sunshine. He’s still got a ways to go to gain weight and Mako knows it’s all up in the air as to whether or not he’ll ever make a full recovery, but she can’t bring herself to mind too much. 

“I’m sure we can talk to the cooks about it,” she says, squeezing his hand. He pulls her in for a hug as Sensei uses his cane to hook a chair over to sit in, sighing contentedly.

“What about you, Sensei?”

“I’m going to buy a flat,” he says, meeting her surprised eyes. He smiles as she pulls over two more chairs, sitting beside him. “I’d like to just be Stacker for a bit; not Marshall.”

“Where will you go?” Herc asks as Sensei smiles, reaching for Mako’s hand, the sun warming his skin as Mako listens to Yancy and Tendo corrall the techs. Yancy has taken over more of the day-to-day responsibilities of the Shatterdome, letting Tendo and Jake help him. Mako wonders if they’ll keep doing it past Sensei leaving. 

“I think I’ll go home,” Sensei says, satisfied. Herc hums in agreement and Mako knows he’s thinking of the home he hasn’t had in years. She rubs the tattoo on her collarbone, meeting Sensei’s eyes as he smiles at her.

“Have room for two more?”

“Always.”

In the Hong Kong sunshine, six months since the Breach was closed by a piece of Mako’s heart, she finds herself finally at peace. She releases the memories of Chuck into the spray, thinking only of his laugh and the life she’s going to make for herself.

It is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks are owed to a couple of people before I go:
> 
> ienablu - Thank you so much for all of your help with this behemoth. You helped me look over it and gave me some ways to poke at it later on down the line. It was an immense help and you helped make this better. Thank you. 
> 
> xandri - Thank you for the hand-holding and encouraging me to finish it. You were right, I'm glad that I did, no matter what else happens. 
> 
> And, of course:
> 
> Saellys: Thank you for everything. This fic was first conceived of over IM with you and you helped me take a painful idea and make it TRULY gut-wrenching. This is partly for you and I'm glad that I was finally able to get this out there.  
> ====
> 
> While I am finished, I'm always willing to do time-stamps or yell about it, so feel free to come find me on Tumblr at [MayQueen517](mayqueen517.tumblr.com). 
> 
> I'd love to know what you think, but I hope you enjoyed it!


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